Video 17:58
Friday Forum

Emma Alberici
Fri 20 Sep 2013, 11:35 PM AEST

Liberal Party M.P. Sussan Ley and Labor's former Immigration Minister Tony Burke join Emma Alerici to dsicuss the Coalition's first week in power.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Our political forum tonight brings together Tony Burke, who became a household name in the Rudd-Gillard Governments, and Sussan Ley, who is a lesser-known MP despite having been in the Parliament longer. This week Tony Abbott appointed her assistant to the Minister for Education, with responsibility for childcare and early childhood. Tony Burke is now the Labor spokesman for immigration. Tony Burke here in Sydney, Sussan Ley in Brisbane, welcome.

SUSSAN LEY, ASST. MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Hello.

TONY BURKE, OPPOSITION IMMIGRATION SPOKESMAN: Good to be with you.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now, a question for both of you: is it inevitable that at some point the rate of the GST, or the number of things that are covered by it, will be expanded? Sussan Ley first.

SUSSAN LEY: No, I don't think it is inevitable, Emma. I was actually a tax office technical person when the GST was introduced and it certainly wasn't necessarily forecast at that time. The key thing is that the states have their own productive economies. We will assist by getting rid of the carbon tax and red tape and, when business is generated, state taxes will increase. Of course state premiers are calling for more GST. They want more money. That's natural. But there's absolutely no way that this Government plans to raise it.

EMMA ALBERICI: So why put it in the review of taxes?

SUSSAN LEY: Well, I'm not saying it won't be looked at in terms of a review, because there may be different aspects of the GST that can be examined, but we've made a clear statement today that the GST will not increase. And the fact that state premiers are calling for it to increase is not a reason for Tony Abbott, Prime Minister, to say, "Okay, we'll give you more money." We need the economy generally to be more productive, more strong and generating more income and that's what we plan to do.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Burke, Colin Barnett, the Western Australian Premier, told Lateline last night that the amount of money coming from the GST simply wasn't expanding quickly enough to cover essential services like education and health. Is he right?

TONY BURKE: Well, it's not the - the GST is not the only source of money that goes to the state governments. What Colin Barnett is outlining is effectively the Liberal position and that's why they've put the GST into the review, which is: they're heading down a path where there's less tax on polluters, less tax on miners and more tax on groceries and that's the effective path that they're setting up. And if they weren't setting it up that way, they'd do what we did with the Henry review and just rule the GST out. It's in there so that they can set up the argument to increase the GST.

EMMA ALBERICI: Sussan Ley?

SUSSAN LEY: We've made a clear statement that we're not increasing the GST and I just go back to Tony and say: what did you actually do with the Henry review? Not a lot. Good work was done and it sat on the sidelines with a very incompetent government. So we actually intend to make changes to Australians' systems that produce more income for small businesses and for the economy generally and the GST is one part of that, yes, but we've said we won't increase the GST.

TONY BURKE: But you see, this is the exact change in priorities. To say that nothing happened out of the Henry review completely disregards taking a million people out of the tax system when we tripled the tax-free threshold. So we actually made the tax change that affected the people on the lowest incomes. The review when you leave the GST in, that the Coalition's now proposing, is about increasing the tax burden on the people on lowest incomes and that is a fundamentally different approach to tax to what we had.

SUSSAN LEY: Stop scaremongering, Tony Burke. We've said we will not increase the GST so come up with another line. That one's not working.

TONY BURKE: Well, take it out of the review.

EMMA ALBERICI: Is the only reason neither party is prepared to enter this debate federally because it is just too politically dangerous?

SUSSAN LEY: I don't think it's politically dangerous. I think we can have an honest discussion about all of the taxes that Australians face without scaremongering by the Labor Party, pointing the finger and saying, "Of course we're going to raise the GST," just because a couple of state premiers have indicated they'd like to see more money in the state coffers, which is perfectly - what you would expect from state premiers.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Burke, politics aside for a moment if you can possibly muster it. Given that revenue from the mining boom is tapering off or certainly will and that the population is aging in Australia, doesn't there the very least need to be a debate about the tax system in its entirely, which includes the GST? The ACT Labor Chief Minister Katy Gallagher certainly thinks it should be included in a debate.

TONY BURKE: Look, I agree with what the Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings said in that package that you played earlier, which is: when you're looking at reviewing taxes, you can very easily carve out the one that would have the disproportionate burden on people who have less money. It's a very simple thing and a very decent argument to say why you would carve the GST out of that sort of discussion. It's about saying...

EMMA ALBERICI: But our GST in this country, compared to the rest of the world, is very low.

TONY BURKE: Yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that if you increase it, either by broadening the base or increasing the rate, whichever way you do it you have a disproportionate burden on people who are poorer.

EMMA ALBERICI: But if you listen to Colin Barnett, people who are poorer might be missing out on better education and health because the dollars from the GST simply aren't being stretched far enough.

TONY BURKE: Look, the two taxes that Colin Barnett is saying should go down are the ones that apply to polluters and to the most profitable mining companies. I think that says it all.

EMMA ALBERICI: Moving on, a member of the Indonesian parliamentary foreign affairs commission, Tantowi Yahya, has described the Government's asylum seeker policy as offensive and illegal. Sussan Ley, isn't there a real risk here that by pushing ahead, Tony Abbott will seriously damage one of Australia's most strategically and economically important foreign relationships?

SUSSAN LEY: Not at all. We have a constructive relationship with Indonesia. We'll continue to do that. Both Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have extended the hand of friendship, of diplomacy, of conversation, and this is an issue they will talk about in depth and it will be about cooperation and working together on a regional basis, of course it will.

EMMA ALBERICI: It doesn't sound like it, though, so far, when you hear the rhetoric coming from the Indonesian government itself.

SUSSAN LEY: Well, individual members of the Indonesian parliament will have certain views and that's fair enough. But the relationship between our parties and the Indonesian government is a strong one and Scott Morrison as Immigration Minister will carry out the conversations that will eventually stop the boats. Remember, we've been sworn in for just two days but we're hitting the ground running. We will have runs on the board and the evidence will be before the Australian people. And I don't think that the current government, with 50 thousand unauthorised arrivals since it came to power in 2007, can really point the finger at us after two days.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Abbott did say he was going to stop the boats from day one.

SUSSAN LEY: Well, obviously the policy is implemented from day one.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Burke, until very recently you were Immigration Minister. You were in Jakarta, I think, just last month or thereabouts. What's the worst that might happen if Tony Abbott insists on pursuing his agenda to turn boats around and pay for boats and employ local intelligence?

TONY BURKE: Tony Abbott announced policies during the campaign that were about going through Indonesian fishing villages and buying up their boats. Now, that - to do that on another country's soil is extraordinary. To do it in a neighbour as important as Indonesia is crazy and he won't implement it. He can't implement it. It's offensive to Indonesians and most Australians just know it's ridiculous.

What I believe will happen after they've thrown up their hands - well, they'll throw up their hands, make a lot of noise, they'll then do what they've already started doing which is not let anyone know whether or not boats have arrived. They'll end up having to implement the regional resettlement arrangements that we started. And you look at the impact that that already had: that will be the plan. And Tony Abbott should swallow his pride now and acknowledge they're not going to go around buying back boats. It was a stupid idea. They should be upfront and get on with implementing the resettlement arrangements.

EMMA ALBERICI: Sussan Ley, is it true that part of your Government's agenda here is to stop making public the numbers of arrivals that are coming by boat?

SUSSAN LEY: Look, you would have to ask Scott Morrison that. I don't - I can't answer that, Emma, but I can't take seriously a man who stood beside Kevin Rudd with a hastily cobbled-together PNG solution and said it would work on the back of the almost 50,000 unauthorised arrivals that we've had, a Government that threw its hand up in the air and let people into communities on community detention with no income, with two-thirds of Newstart, with no work rights, effectively consigning them to a ghetto-like existence and turning its back on them. I mean, you cannot take seriously a previous Immigration Minister that tries to say that we've got it wrong and they had it right. It's just not the case.

TONY BURKE: Do you honestly believe you'll be buying up boats in Indonesian fishing villages?

SUSSAN LEY: Well, I honestly believe we will have a policy that stops boats coming to Australia and stops the people smugglers. And you in government miserably failed to do that. Point to one single success when it came to asylum seekers.

TONY BURKE: Oh, love to. No, no, love to. And thank you for the opportunity. Regional resettlement arrangements. You look at what had happened to the people smuggling operations by those final weeks. Yes, I remember when I first became...

EMMA ALBERICI: The boats were still coming out.

TONY BURKE: Oh, and the - if you look at the profile of the people who are coming now, you've got people who had already paid the people smugglers and are making a judgment as to whether or not they'll give up their money or whether or not they'll play the gamble. But since you had the abolition of visa on arrival for Iranians in Indonesia, it's not just me saying it and the announcements that I made. Media went through, found three versions of stories, people saying either they'd now go to the UNHCR, people saying they'd now go home and smaller number of people, a much smaller number of people than we'd seen previously, saying they were deciding whether or not they'd try their luck. That's why you saw the massive drop in the number of boats arriving after those regional resettlement arrangements were introduced.

EMMA ALBERICI: But I think we've already had something like seven boats arrive since the new Government was announced.

TONY BURKE: Well, the truth is you won't know. I respect that Sussan's referred the question to Scott Morrison, but I've had journalists from all publications ringing me today saying, "How do we find out?" Because they've been ringing the department saying, "Have any boats arrived?" The department's said, "We don't answer that any more. You've gotta go to Scott Morrison's office." Scott Morrison's office is refusing to answer the questions. The policy I thought from the then Opposition, now the Government, was that they would stop the boats, not that they would hide the information.

EMMA ALBERICI: Sussan Ley, I wanted to move on to another topic. There's a few things most people wouldn't know about you. You've been a commercial pilot. I understand you still hold the licence. You were an air traffic controller, you've worked in accounting and finance as you mentioned, the director of technical training at the Tax Office, in fact. And unlike some in the National Party you've actually been a farmer. And on top of all that you've raised three children, you have three university degrees in economics, in tax law and in accounting and you've been in the Parliament for 12 years. In what way are you not qualified enough to be a Cabinet Minister?

SUSSAN LEY: I want to answer this question in a couple of ways, Emma. I actually want to mention that another career I had was in the sheering sheds and most of the people who picked up fleeces were boys or young men and I was expected to pick up 500 fleeces a day. No allowances were made for me. I was pretty fit then, I ran up and down the board like crazy and it didn't hatter how heavy the fleeces were, I threw 500 a day. If somebody had said to me on that board, "Oh look, you're a girl, you can sort of knock off a bit early, you don't have to work an eight-hour day," I would have been horrified. If someone was to look at me now in my current position, which I'm honoured to hold, and say, "You're only there because you're a woman," I would be horrified.

And I wanna make a further point, and Brendan Nelson always said this very well: "You look down on the Parliament. You can serve the people from wherever you sit." You can make a powerful contribution from the backbench, perhaps as the chair of a committee, perhaps as somebody who exercises a certain point of view very strenuously - Judi Moylan comes to mind on asylum seekers. I didn't agree with her but she lent weight to a debate at the time. So I think this argument has got way out of hand and I think that we are entitled as parties to pick the team that best serves the nation in the capacity that our leader makes that judgment at the time.

EMMA ALBERICI: But you didn't answer my question, with respect.

SUSSAN LEY: Which was?

EMMA ALBERICI: Do you personally think that you merited a position within the Cabinet, especially given you hold responsibility for childcare and early childhood which are issues, if you're serious about encouraging more women into the workforce as Tony Abbott says he is, they would sound like Cabinet positions.

SUSSAN LEY: Well, technically I think that ministry has usually sat outside Cabinet. But what I'm delighted to be helping through the parliament is our new paid parental leave system, which will kick in in about 18 months' time and which will actually allow women to participate more fully in the workforce and step away and not lose income when they have children. Because this isn't really about the numbers of women on the front bench...

EMMA ALBERICI: But if I can draw you back to the actual question, does it not bother you then that there is only one woman in the Cabinet?

SUSSAN LEY: I'd like to see more women in the Parliament. I'm not focused on the frontbenches. I said the Parliament as a whole. I think as women we need to perhaps do more to encourage women to put their hands up for preselection. That comes down to work-family balance, that comes down to stepping away from your career when you have children and sometimes not getting back into it. That's why our paid parental leave system allows women to receive the income they deserve, have the numbers of children they want, spend time at home with the children and come back and participate fully in the workforce and hopefully put their hand up for Parliament.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Burke, Labor hasn't got a great track record here either, it has to be said, because even though you've got a 40 per cent target for the number of women in safe Labor seats, Gellibrand went to Tim Watts, Batman to David Feeney, despite some very strong female candidates who were in fact being championed by other women within your Caucus.

TONY BURKE: Yeah, and I think the difference is: when this argument happens within Labor we at least see it as a serious argument and there'll be preselections. There are some where I have a view they went the wrong way in some of the seats that we were meant to win and we didn't. But we acknowledge something that it's fair say the Coalition don't acknowledge which is that if you're claiming it's merit and it's 95 per cent male, it's probably not merit. And that's what is at the heart of this. The Coalition will have effective quotas for National Party, for city-country, for state-by-state representation, for the different groups within the Liberal Party and when you get something disproportionate on gender, they then say, "Oh no, but we don't have quotas."

When it's 95 per cent one way, it's clearly not a merit argument. And you look at someone like Kelly O'Dwyer who didn't make the cut at all and you go through some of the people who are in the executive and you know, there's one guy there, a Victorian Senator. I had to Google to find out who he was. There's people who have been front and centre in the campaign who the Liberal Party and National Party were happy to push as the public face of their party that they then failed to deliver for for responsibility.

EMMA ALBERICI: A quick response, Sussan Ley?

SUSSAN LEY: I'm sorry, Tony, that you have to Google members of our party. I think that says more about your approach to the system rather than our people.

TONY BURKE: I'm sure Scott Ryan's a lovely guy. I might have met him in a queue for a coffee. I just didn't know him.

SUSSAN LEY: You know, that's an unnecessary broadside at somebody who is incredibly capable, but because you don't know them you're making an assessment about them.

TONY BURKE: I'm making an assessment about Kelly O'Dwyer and how good she is.

SUSSAN LEY: Look, I think we're all good. I think we've got fantastically talented people. We've got lots of people on the frontbench and the backbench and I just come back to - Australia, it's not about, we're not like a corporation where you rise to the top. You serve in the Parliament with a spirit of public service. It's an honour and a privilege and as I said, you can make the contribution from wherever you sit and I don't - you know, I feel grateful that I have an opportunity to serve. Number one: as a local MP, that's always first and foremost, that's what we're there for. There's nothing "just" about being a backbencher and I think this debate has really skewed the argument in an unfortunate direction. But briefly, Emma: merit, yes, only merit. I would not like someone to say, "Sussan Ley has the job because they needed to fill a quota of women." That diminishes me, the job and women in general.

EMMA ALBERICI: And very quickly because we are out of time, Tony Burke, tell us who you're going to back in the Labor leadership contest.

TONY BURKE: I'm one of the people who's nominated Bill Shorten. In a previous leadership challenge we've had situations where every one of us have given our reasons for and against each candidate. I don't think it ended real well. And so I've signed the nomination form but other than that I won't be weighing in on the debate.

EMMA ALBERICI: Tony Burke, Sussan Ley, thank you both so much for coming in this evening.